Non-Subscriber Extract
Behind the scenes - Uralmash gang retreats into the shadows
By Mark Galeotti
03 September 2009
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, right, welcomes Afghan President Hamid Karzai during their meeting at a Russian government residence outside Yekaterinburg on 15 June. Uralmash is deeply involved in smuggling Afghan opiates into Russia and from there into Western Europe. (Press Association)
In February 2006, Major General Alexander Yelin, deputy head of Russia's Organised Crime Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Ministerstvo vnutrennykh del: MVD), claimed at a press conference: "In 2005 a gang called Uralmash was eradicated in the Sverdlovsk Region." This assertion was met with widespread derision in the region and in the city of Yekaterinburg, the capital of Sverdlovsk Region and home to the Uralmash criminal group.
It is true the group suffered serious blows in 2005 as a result of law enforcement efforts and internal divisions. However, accounts of its demise appear exaggerated.
After following the MVD's line for almost two years, police in Yekaterinburg and people of the Sverdlovsk region have begun investigating the gang again. In September 2009, the police arrested Igor Novozhilov and accused him of being "a ringleader of the Uralmash criminal group" (at the time of going to press, police had not yet announced the full range of charges against Novozhilov).
The result of the campaign against Uralmash encouraged the group to restructure and retreat from its previous high profile to a new and less obvious position, operating behind a façade of businesses, social movements and local gangs. As such, the group's experience provides a valuable example of the way Russian organised crime adapted under the 1999 to 2008 presidency of Vladimir Putin, when the overt gangsterism of the 1990s became no longer acceptable, and how it may continue to evolve under President Dmitry Medvedev.